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Salzburg Sights

Pferdeschwemme (Horse Pond)

Fodor's Review

If Rome had fountains, so, too, would Wolf-Dietrich's Salzburg. The city is studded with them, and none is so odd as this monument to the equine race. You'll find it if you head to the western end of the Hofstallgasse to find Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz, named after Salzburg's second-greatest musical son, the legendary conductor and music director of the Salzburg Festival for many decades. On the Mönchsberg side of the square is the Pferdeschwemme—a royal trough, constructed in 1695, where prize horses used to be cleaned and watered; as they underwent this ordeal they could delight in the frescoes of their pin-up fillies on the rear wall. The baroque monument in the middle represents the antique legend of the taming of a horse, Bellerophon and his mount, Pegasus.